No. 3 Exposure builds resiliance

I am not writing in historical order but just as memories come to me. This one came today.

So, things I have learned as a mother of an autistic son:

No. 3 - exposure builds resilience.

This is around Aidan's sensitivity issues. It is really common for people on the autistic spectrum (I think of this as a particularly colourful rainbow) to have sensory sensitivities. 

For example noises can actually hurt in their head, or get lost in the air on route. For some it is touch. Even the seams on trousers, tops and socks can prove to be too painful. 

Aidan has both sound and touch issues and is hyper to both, as well as smell. 

I think we had just received his diagnosis the first time we took him for a haircut. He has really thick hair and was doing a good impression of the 1970's Hulk. He would have been nearly three.

We have a wonderful local barber, my husband and oldest son love to go. Really manly place. He also employs a disabled person to support his team of barbers, so I do know we are very lucky.

Anyway, my husband and oldest son had their cuts as usual, and the son receives his lollipop. I arrive just as they finish, and show Aidan, who is totally locked in his own head at this point, wigged out by the noise and trying to hide behind the coat rack and play with the water, where he will go to get his hair cut.

We get him in the chair. So far so good. He likes the chair and the mirror. Then the clippers start. And he melts down spectacularly, real anguish and inconsolable. But it is too late, the first cut is done and there is no turning back. 

So I adopt a kind of headlock with enough space for the barber to do his thing and try to reassure him, and the petrified people waiting to have their haircut. Husband comes for support and we successfully pin him. By 5 minutes in he is red, tears streaming down his cheeks and a ball of snot. 

Someone, it may even have been me but I like to think not in my head, had the bright idea of giving him a lolly to distract him. Which worked. For exactly 10 seconds until he took it out  his mouth and a large chunk of cut hair landed on it. Then he was really upset and got more snotty, forming a comedy beard of his cut hair, lolly juice and snot. Baby wipes were just out of reach and I knew if I let go at that point then the boy was going home with a mohican. So beardy boy screamed, we made shushing noises, and Mem kept on cutting.

Finally, after what felt like hours but was more like 20 minutes, we got the job done, the beard removed, changed his t-shirt for one not so hairy, snotty and sticky; and got him a lollipop that didn't look like Donald Trump. Silence. Apart from me being super over the top in my praising of him for surviving. Everyone in the place physically relaxed. We even had a little laugh at the comedy beard and how it took 3 of us to cut one little boys hair. 

And then I turn to look for him to shower him with more praise. And he has manged to get behind the coat rack where he wanted to be earlier, and is in the shop window. Naked. Apart from the not hairy lollipop. And his blue wellies. 

It was all just too much and the overload on his senses meant any contact with his skin was not acceptable. So naked he got. Except for the wellies as he doesn't like the feel of bare feet on the floor. It took the same 3 of us to corner him and get him out that busy main street window, and I finally got some clothes back on him by turning everything inside out so he was seam free for his trip home.

I am very happy to say we kept going back, Mem kept cutting his hair, we kept doing the headlock, and it got easier each time. And he kept his clothes on. The streaking is cute at 3 but a police matter at 16. So sometimes you have to accept that exposure will build resilience and just keep going.

16. My lovely boy is 16 this week. And can cope with touch, a hug, if not too long, and me holding his arm while we walk. He fixes his hair and even has a style. He still twitches when they cut it but he copes. He still hates the smell of cigarettes and does a very loud fake cough if it blows on him while out. And he still feels pain when people sing - he can listen to music but not anyone singing live easily. Even with noise reducing headphones he struggles. But he loves to sing. With his clothes on and the seams the right way.

So lesson No. 3 as the mother of an  autistic son. Sometimes things we do can seem impossible, unbearable, and thoroughly miserable. But keeping going, and keeping trying, brings a way of coping, moving on, and a resilience that can be applied to many things in life.